The Book Donations
Committee of the Africana Librarians Council, the oldest active section of the African Studies Association (ASA), works to support and fund donation initiatives.
The committee's roots can be traced back to discussions in the 1980's amongst librarians and publishers concerned about the state of libraries in Africa.
The Book Donation Committee reviews applications for the African Studies Association annual Gretchen Walsh Book Donation Award. ASA award amounts vary from year to year as the allocation formula is dependent upon outreach grants and other income received. ASA supports projects
which best meet the
proposal criteria outlined. Awardees will be announced at the ASA Annual meeting.
Alix Saba
Executive Director, African Studies Association
Tel: 848.445.1273
Email: [email protected]
ASA Awards have been granted to the following recipients:
The 2021 Awardee of the Gretchen Walsh Book Donations Award is the Christiansborg Archaeological Heritage Project Library (CAHP), Ghana (www.christiansborgarchaeologicalheritageproject.org) for the requested amount of $1,000.00. The Christiansborg Archaeological Heritage Project (CAHP) was originally established in 2014 as a community archaeology project at Christiansborg Castle. The Castle is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and former trading post during the Danish transatlantic slave trade, seat of British colonial government, and Office of the President of the Republic of Ghana. CAHP developed and launched the Excavating Knowledge Project as part of a community involvement program. Its goal is to "promote experiential learning and imbue students of all ages with a sense of pride in their history and heritage". The goal of the subsequent CAHP Library "is to provide an accessible learning resource for students of all ages, educators and members of the community living in the area surrounding Christiansborg Castle in one of the most impoverished communities in Osu, Accra, Ghana....the library will build upon and consolidate the existing community-based work of the CAHP. [It] will hold extra-curricular activities like storytelling to promote literacy, be a quiet place to do homework if the home environment is not conducive to study and offer lifelong learning opportunities for adults. The CAHP library is located at the Castle in a former administrative building, generously provided free of charge by the Ghana government who recognize and appreciate the benefits to the local community. The space has been adapted with locally made bookshelves and furniture and decorated by a local artist in a way that will attract and enthuse users of all ages. This was work was funded by Ghanaian donors. The library has secured books from donations from the US but more resources are needed."
$400 to assist in the shipping of books to the Haddonfield Community Resource Center, Aweil, South Sudan In 2012, Garang Buk Buk Piol began a small center in Aweil to offer an alternative to children studying at night by streetlight. He built a small, solar-powered building for people to read and stocked a small library with books he purchased from Kenya. In both 2013 and 2015, the center was partially destroyed by heavy floods and wind. The building is currently being rebuilt and expanded. Garang, now a MA student at Emory, partnered with the Haddonfield Memoria High School in New Jersey and in 2020, the center was renamed the Haddonfield Community Resource Center. Still in development, the Center's vision is to build a safe, resilient, and vibrant resource center in Aweil, South Sudan that supports and facilitates learning, education, and community for people of Aweil, especially girls. Some of its principal goals are: to provide a safe and conducive place to read in Aweil; build a larger library that is structurally strong and stocked diverse books and resources for different educational levels. The Gretchen Walsh Book Donations award will partially contribute to the shipping of 2 metric tons of books by shipping container to Mombasa, where Garang will pick them up to transport them by truck to Aweil, South Sudan. For more information on this project and how to further support them, visit: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-support-garang
$300 to assist with shipping 400 age-appropriate books to Kokobe Primary School's library, Kokobe, Lesotho The approx. 250 children of Kokobe Primary School in Kokobe, Lesotho, do not have access to any supplemental reading materials. A long-standing partnership between Laptops to Lesotho and the school's principal has resulted in a project to establish a small library that will help improve educational opportunities for both children and adults in Kokobe. Funds have already ensured the construction of a classroom/library and the next phase is to supply the library with reference materials, easy readers, chapter books, nonfiction books that are appropriate to an elementary school. Over 400 age-appropriate books for the library have been collected thus far and a further goal is to be able to provide books both in Sesotho and English. The Gretchen Walsh Book Donations Shipping Award will partially fund the shipment of these books to Kokobe. For more information on how to help this project, visit: https://www.gofundme.com/f/j78s5-education-for-all/donations
$300 to assist with the shipping of STEM books to the library at the Nhedziwa Community Center, Chimanimani, Zimbabwe Schools in rural Chimanimani lack libraries and the few that do have outdated materials that exclude STEM. Girls from these communities are particularly excluded from science-related subjects because of cultural biases and entrenched gender stereotypes. In response to this need, MTC Educate a Girl, Inc., is working to establish the Nhedziwa Community Center as an educational and study center. It includes a library to be equipped with books and audio-visual materials for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) for young readers covering modeling real-world innovation, embracing real-world design, invention, and addressing connections between the STEM disciplines. It serves students from Nhedziwa Primary and High Schools, Gonzoni Primary and Chiramba Primary schools in Chimanimani, Zimbabwe. The Gretchen Walsh Book Donations Award will assist the shipping costs for a shipping barrel of selected STEM textbooks.
$230 to assist in the shipping of books to the University of Makeni library in Makeni, Sierra Leone. The University of Makeni (http://unimak.edu.sl/wordpress/) is a private university in the north of Sierra Leone. Dr. Shepler (American University) taught at Makeni during 2019/20 and has been working in collaboration with the university to develop the library's collections. The University sent her a full set of curricula for their bachelors and masters programs and collaborated on developing a list of needed books, mainly focused on international development, peace, and conflict resolution. Given that there are many overlaps with the curriculum of the international development and the international peace and conflict resolution programs at American University, faculty have been working to collect/donate the desired books. The award assisted with the shipping of books from Washington, D.C. to Makeni, Sierra Leone.
$1000.00 to assist in shipping books to community libraries in Burkina Faso from The Friends of African Village Libraries (FAVL), Burkina Faso.
$750 to assist YAfrique (Ghana) in sending books to libraries in Abonsuaso and Tabirikrom villages, located in in the Ashanti region of Ghana.
$1600 to assist shipping of selected books from MSU faculty to the Southern African Institute for Policy and Research (SAIPAR), Zambia.
$1000.00 to assist in shipping books from Indiana's Goshen College to the Macha School of Nursing Project, Zambia
Two awards were granted to support shipping costs to send books to African libraries and schools. Awardees are the Liberian Schools Project, with US Liaison,Elizabeth Johnson, and The Pagus Library in Ghana.
$600.00 to send 2,250 books to Tshaulu Primary School (k-7), South Africa. The teachers of Tshaulu Primary School and DeKalb County Indiana community members organized a book drive with U.S. liaison, Michelle Ramus, a Peace Corps volunteer.
$1250.00 to send books to support young readers at the Kono Public Library in Sierra Leone. Mountain Top For Sierra Leone Women, founded in 2010, supports health and education for women and girls also supporting their leadership within their communities. Since 2011, the organization has awarded the Kono Girls’ Scholarship Fund to support girls in the diamond mining region of Kono, Sierra Leone to attend their local schools. In 2011, Kono also opened its first public library and the Kono Girls Fund was used to purchase memberships to the Kono Public Library for each girl so that they would have a safe place to study until 5:00 pm in the evening.
$750.00 to ship books to St. Joseph's/Hope Connecting Hearts, Inc., Nigeria.
$800.00 to ship books to St. Mark's Welfare Committee, Malawi.
$500.00 to ship books to the Niombato Library Project, Senegal.
$225.00 to ship books to Zimbabwe through the Michigan State University Partnership.
$1000.00 to ship books to the University of Sierra Leone, Fourah Bay College and other community libraries in Sierra Leone.
$500.00 to ship books to the Ontulili Resource Center Project in Kenya.
$200.00 to ship books to Oupumako, Namibia through the Salamatu Foundation which continues its educational endeavors in Namibia.
$600.00 to ship books to Nonkululeko Mdluli in Swaziland who partnered with the African Library Project.
$400.00 to the Mary Patch Turnbull Memorial Library Taita/Taveta District, KENYA.
$300.00 to send 4 out of the 16 boxes prepared for the Walmer High School Library Restoration Project, Walmer township, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The shipment will include some Xhosa language texts.
$200.00 to assist Apprends-Moi International and partner Azure Development to send 2000 books to Congo-Brazzaville.
$1,000 to ship 300 boxes of books to start six libraries in Steenbok, S.A., a former homeland created under the apartheid regime. Sivulamehlo Book Project, Steenbok, South Africa
$250 to ship 530 books to a library in the Dutch reformed Church in Burhmansdrift, S.A. EMA Foundation, Burhmansdrift, South Africa
$250 to ship 40 boxes of books from Chicago to the Lycee Classique de Bouake in Abidjan, which was damaged during the 2002 civil war. Lycee Classique Library, Bouake, Cote d'Ivoire
$250 to ship donated children's books from The Community Action Works, USA to Chinsali District, Northern Province, Zambia.
$450 to ship a donation of new biology textbooks from from U.S. Partner, Kearsley Stewart, Anthropology Department at Northwestern University to secondary school students at the Adonten Secondary School, Ghana.
$700 to ship donated books from U.S. Partner, Ralph Klumpp, Research Coordinator,Stanford University to the Research and Training Institute in Zimbabwe.
$750 to ship books to the Foundation for Children's Education in Uganda. The project is a collaboration between Matt Loving, graduate students at the University of Florida, and University of California, Davis working with communities around the Kibale National Park in Uganda.
$500 to ship a donation of books from U.S. Partner, Elizabeth Balint, Great Lakes Consortium to Tanga Regional Library. This donation will supplement the library's business resource center and assist in job training and skill acquisition for patrons.
$600 to ship a donation of children's and homemaking skills books to WIN affiliated community based educational centers to support children and skills training for their mothers. The U.S. partner and proposal came from Dr. Natasha Gordon-Chipembere, Department of English from Medgar Evers College (CUNY) .
$500 to ship geology books to from the AESEDA Library Program for Georesources Capacity Building to university libraries in Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa.
$500 to ship nursing books of retired nursing University of Albany nursing faculty member Anne Slyer Oboyski to support the new nursing program at Debab University in Awassa, Ethiopia.
$500 to ship children's and K-12 school textbooks donated to Friends of African Village Libraries to community-run libraries in Burkina Faso and Ghana.
$410 to ship school books from Global Youth Partnership for Africa/Books for Africa to school libraries in Gulu, Uganda.
$400 to ship K-12 books from Book for Zim to school libraries in Lemba and Mapakamhere, Zimbabwe.
$400 to ship titles covering the teaching of English, Math, and Science from Dr. Mary F. Barratt in Ames, Iowa to Juda Girls Secondary School, Teachers Resources Center at the University of Juba in Juba, Sudan.
$290 to ship children's books donated by Dr. Steve Frantzich at the United States Naval Academy to Kids Hope School's Library: Tokbet Library & Community Resources Centre (TOLCREC) in Tokbet Hills, Plateau State, Nigeria.
$800 to ship donated books and journals from the Friends of Sanar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to the Universite? Gaston Berger de Saint Louis (Sanar) in Saint Louis, Senegal.
$500 to ship donated books and journals from SIBUSISO, Inc. in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, to the Esikelweni Community, Eastern Cape, Natal, South Africa.
$400 to ship the library and papers of the Late Lemuel Johnson from the ALA Issues Committee at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to Fourah Bay College in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
$400 to ship donated books and journals from The Gambia Book Project at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, to the Latrikunda Lower Basic School and Gambia College and University of The Gambia.
$300 to ship donated books and journals from the Great Lakes Consortium for International Training and Development (GLC) in Toledo, Ohio, to the Morogoro Youth Development Centre, Kilakala-Community Library in Tanzania.
$200 to ship donated books from Education for All in Seattle, Washington to the Education for All library in Warren Park, Zimbabwe and sites in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe.
$200 to ship donated books from Janet Jasinski in East Freetown, Massachusetts to the Palabana Basic School in Zambia.
$200 to ship donated books and journals from Read More Books, Regis College Tinansa Intercultural Service Learning Program, Denver, Colorado, to the Westley Girls Primary and Junior Secondary School in Ghana.
$885 to ship 1,100 donated books from Professor William G. Martin, State University of Binghamton, Binghamton, New York, to the University of the Western Cape Library.
$590 to ship donated books from People United for Libraries in Africa (PULA), New York, New York, to a community library in Butiru, Uganda.
$540 to ship donated books from Ms. Wilma P.L. Jones, Chief Librarian of the College of Staten Island CUNY, Staten Island, New York, to the Njala University College Library in Sierra Leone.
$500 to ship microbiology lab books from the David Saum Foundation, Falls Church, Virginia, to the University of Dar Es Salaam Microbiology Department, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.
$285 to ship reference books donated by U.S. publishers from the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, Los Angeles, California, to the J.R. Camm Senior Primary School in Aranos, Namibia.
$200 to ship donated English as a Second Language materials from the Des Monies Area Community College, Des Monies, Iowa, to the University of South Africa Department of Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics.
$500.00 to ship library materials to Malawi from Portland, Oregon through the Friends of Malawi Project.
$600.00 to ship legal documents from the Yale Law School Library to the Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone.
$500.00 to ship library materials from Georgia State University, Gerontology Institute to the Bureau of Educational Research, to support a Gerontology Project at Kenyatta University.
$260.00 to ship library materials from Rockhurst University Literacy Center, Rockhurst University International Book Pass and Donation Program to Sibisi Primary School and Sekanaka Secondary School Dennilton, South Africa.
$500.00 to ship library materials from Santa Clara University, the Stanford Parents Club, and the Friends of African Village Libraries in California to village libraries and literacy projects in Koumbia, Karaba as well as its continued support to the library in Bereba in Burkina Faso.
$270.00 ship 800 lbs of donated library materials to Bungoma in Western Kenya from the Outreach Kenya Project at Indiana University.
$370.00 to support the Center of Excellence in Minority Medical Education & Health at Michigan State University to ship science and social science materials to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka library.
$300.00 to ship library materials to The Polytechnic in Ibadan, Nigeria from Penn State Harrisburg
$350.00 to ship library materials to the Children's Resource Library Project in Kampala, Uganda in collaboration with the People with Disabilities Uganda (PWDU) and Pearls of Africa organization
$1000.00 to ship library materials to the University of Malawi in Zomba, Malawi from Miles College in Birmingham, Alabama
$670.00 to ship library materials to the Munali School located in Lusaka, Zambia from the Seattle Academy in Seattle, Washington
$180.00 to ship examination copies of social science and humanities textbooks to the University of South Africa in Pretoria, South Africa, Department of Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics where Ms. Louise Kretzschmar will distribute them to the Baptist Convention College library in Soweto
$250.00 to ship library materials to the Afhad University for Women in Omdurman(AUW) in Sudan, The Sudan-American Foundation For Education, Inc. (SAFE) plans to arrange a book exhibition so that librarians from academic institutions in the Sudan may select books to supply their libraries.
$250.00 to ship library materials to the community library in Oupumako, Namibia through the Salamatu Foundation to develop a library for community education about HIV/AIDS.
$800 to ship library materials to the Julie Okeyo Memorial Library Foundation (part of the registered non-profit, Science and Engineering Research Center) in Nairobi Kenya
$1500 to ship library materials to the University of Lagos Library in Lagos, Nigeria in connection with the School of Political & International Studies at Farleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ
$700 to ship library materials to the Bibliotheque Villageois de Bereba in Burkina Faso in connection with Santa Clara University.
$525 for the University of Virginia and University of the Western Cape, South Africa. This is a project to send materials to the new library of the UWC Anthropology/Sociology Departments.
$120 for the University of Puget Sound and School of Occupational Therapy in Moshi, Tanzania.
$500 for the Friends of Malawi West Coast Book Project in Portland, Oregon for primary schools in Malawi. The organization has a working mechanism to identify appropriate schools.
$927.50 for the Books for Africa project at Rutgers University and the Kakapel village library in Teso District in Western Kenya. This NGO has a long-term goal of establishing rural libraries in Kenya, one at a time.
$927.50 for Cultural Survival in Cambridge, MA and a Maasai educational center in Narok, Kenya. Cultural Survival is an NGO established in 1972 to defend the rights of indigenous people and ethnic minorities.The library will serve the needs of 4 high schools, a teacher's college, and the community as a whole.
$300 to Allegheny College for a project with Edo State University, Nigeria. This modest award added to local funding to finish shipping 515 pounds of books and journals. The requester, Dr. Onaiwu Ogbomo, taught at Edo State (formerly Bendel State) from 1982 to 1993, and the current project builds on his past efforts through the Edo State University Librarian. Dr. Ogbomo has mobilized students and faculty at Allegheny making this a community effort with excellent support on both sides.
$300 to Michigan State University for a project with Addis Ababa University. These two institutions have a long-standing relationship in both research and exchanging students and faculty. The requester, Tim Carmichael, spent three years in Ethiopia, and developed a list of the specific books and journal issues needed at AAU.
$750 to RAINBO for a project with African women's NGOs and academic institutions. RAINBO stands for Research, Action and Information Network for the Bodily Integrity of Women. This non-profit organization is based in New York City. They produce and freely distribute high quality text and graphic materials on reproductive health, focusing on female genital mutilation. They have partners in 28 African countries and reach 120 libraries. This award helps to widely distribute vitally needed high quality materials throughout the continent.
$825 to Renaissance Project, University of Texas-Pan American for a project with University of Yaounde 1. This award helped ship about $20,000 worth of modern textbooks collected from faculty throughout the United States. The Renaissance Project developed as a national effort out of Dr. William Strong's Fulbright stay at the University of Ibadan. His Yaounde partners are Dr. Ann Eno and Vice Rector Edward Ako.
$825 to University at Albany for a project with Douala University. This project for shipping about 30 boxes came out of specific direct requests from Douala's students and faculty. Douala was upgraded from a teacher's college and trade school to a university in 1993, but the Library still has gaps related to the new curriculum. The relationship between the two institutions began in 1997/98 when Douala's General Secretary, Dr. Therese Belle Wangue, visited Albany as a Fulbright Scholar. The requester, Dr. Shirley Jones, went to Douala in 1998 to establish a linkage program. Book donations have come from several University at Albany departments as well as from the Friends of the Library booksales.